Pointing at the Other (original) (raw)
If we are content with simple beginnings, this chapter could be summarized with the question: why are people inclined to point with their finger? It seems a marginal topic where we could easily be content with a simple description of external features (movement of hand, outstretched finger) and/or inner motivations. However, the gesture of pointing is also pervaded by a certain discrepancy, where it seems that the above question doesn’t sufficiently articulate the problem. The intended meaning of pointing is framed by the overlapping of language and body. It could be interpreted as neither one nor the other, but something that emerges in the junction of both, in the movement from one to the other. The focus will therefore lie in establishing an overview of this peculiar habit and in unravelling its basic characteristics through Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalytic theory.
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As this foreword is written, at the dawn of the 21st Century, the cognitive sciences are in epistemological ferment. The exuberant optimism of the late 20th-Century adaptationist programme has, itself, started to fragment like the many fingers of a wave against the implacable shore of empirical reality. Dramatic new directions in the philosophy of mind (enactivism, embodied cognition, distributed cognition) and in developmental psychology (dynamic systems theory) are beginning to mature. This special issue, Pointing: Where Embodied Cognition meets the Symbolic Mind, edited by Massimiliano Cappuccio, brings together in one volume an incendiary mix of the emerging generation of philosophers and language researchers, who bring their diverse perspectives to moor on one of the most fascinating phenomena in human development: the ability to co-orient in both space and time to a common focus with what seems, on the face of it, to be a simple pointing gesture. The emerging significance of research and analysis pertaining to pointing reflects a recent phase shift in the sciences concerned with mind and behaviour. To put these innovations in context, it might be worthwhile to review the sweeping upheavals that have recently occurred in the conceptual bedrocks of psychology and the philosophy of language.
Pointing and social awareness: declaring and requesting in the second year
Journal of Child Language, 1996
The production of pointing and other gestures (e.g. reaching or indicative gestures) by 47 infants aged 1; o to 1; 6 was investigated in two experiments contrasting declarative-referential vs. imperative-instrumental conditions of communication. A further group of seven infants aged o; 10 was examined in order to highlight pre-pointing transitional phenomena. Data analyses concerned gestures and associated vocalizations and visual checking with a social partner. Results show that gestures are produced differentially in the experimental conditions: while reaching is only produced in imperative-instrumental contexts, pointing is characteristic of declarative-referential contexts. The pattern of visual checking with the social partner also differentiates gestures; moreover, it shows developmental changes in the case of pointing. Results suggest that pointing relies on some awareness of' psychological' processes (e.g. attention and sharing) in the other and the self, and that it is this which may account for the specific relevance of pointing for language development. [•] The studies reported here were conducted when both authors were at the University of Stirling (Scotland); pilot work was funded by Italian C.N.R. 08 A.I. grant and a European Science Foundation short term fellowship, whereas the main project was funded by ESRC grant N. R000231286. Preliminary parts of this research have been presented at the 1989 and 1991 SRCD conferences. Many thanks are due to the technical staff of Stirling Department of Psychology for cooperation during various phases of the studies; to Adina Lew for helping with reliability; and to Eraldo Nicotra for discussions about statistical issues.
The preference for pointing with the hand is not universal
Cognitive Science, 2018
Pointing is a cornerstone of human communication, but does it take the same form in all cultures? Manual pointing with the index finger appears to be used universally, and is often assumed to be universally preferred over other forms. Non-manual pointing with the head and face has also been widely attested, but is usually considered of marginal significance, both empirically and theoretically. Here, we challenge this assumed marginality. Using a novel communication task, we investigated pointing preferences in the Yupno of Papua New Guinea and in US undergraduates. Speakers in both groups pointed at similar rates, but form preferences differed starkly: the Yupno participants used non-manual pointing (nose-and head-pointing) numerically more often than manual pointing, while the US participants stuck unwaveringly to index-finger pointing. The findings raise questions about why groups differ in their pointing preferences and, more broadly, about why humans communicate in the ways they...
Ostensive gestures come first: their role in the beginning of shared reference
Cognitive Development, 2015
However, in semiotics, it is ostensive gestures that are considered to be the first instance of active signification, that is, gestures where an object occupies a prominent place as an instrument of communication (Eco, 1976). In this paper, coming from the pragmatics of the object perspective (Rodríguez & Moro, 1998), we argue that it is not pointing but ostensive gestures that come first. Specifically, we argue that: (1) ostensive gestures are gestures; (2) a developmental understanding of gestures suggests that children understand and produce ostensive gestures before pointing gestures, and adults produce ostensive gestures with objects in a shared space with the child at a very early age long before pointing gestures; (3) a theoretical and pragmatic conceptualization of objects beyond their "physical" level is required. Objects are cultural products with public functions; as a consequence, objects are also powerful instruments of communication between people, especially during the first years of life, and not simply the setting that surrounds the communicative event. Finally, we discuss the implications of these notions for developmental psychology, going beyond the declarative and imperative functions. We discuss three new functions of ostensive gestures: (1) for oneself with an exploratory and/or contemplative function, (2) private with a self-regulatory function in order to solve a problem, and (3) to another with an interrogative function.
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Mittelberg, I. Evola, V. 2014. Iconic and representational gestures.
C. Müller, A. Cienki, E. Fricke, S. H. Ladewig, D. McNeill and J. Bressem (Eds.), Body – Language – Communication. An International Handbook on Multimodality in Human Interaction (Handbooks of Linguistics and Communcation Science 38.2.). Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter Mouton. 1732–1746., 2014